Handsworth Boys Grammar school exam

[Priya01]

Hi.I have registered my ds for hands worth boys birmingham exam on the Saturday.does anyone know the format and how long will the kids sit the exam for? I don't have a clue about it because the paperwork doesn't say anything nor there's information online.How many marks are allocated for each area? some say the exam is for 3 hrsand they don't have nonverbal but have creative writing.but all this is here say ,I am not sure.
Meanwhile all the best for Wednesday and Saturdays exams.hope your little ones do their best.

[UmSusu]

Hi answered you but on the post you put in the general 11 + section

[mashk]

There's a Verbal reasoning test, and a Maths and English test which will be 30 minutes each.

[Priya01]

Called up Handsworth boys school. They said that it is a 30 minute english, 30 minute Maths and 50 Minute verbal. They also said that the 30 minute english has a creative writing bit like a paragraph writing. Has this ever been the case in the previous years. How can they squeeze in this in such a short time.

[mashk]

It's almost D-Day. I wonder if this test is harder than the King Edwards one my DS did last week. Hmmm.

[UmSusu]

In the past when VR was the main component of the exam (with the maths and English only being looked at for borderline candidates) I have been told that the cut-off point was somewhere around 88% for the VR paper. Also, I cannot be certain that this is a fact but DS1 came out of the exam last year saying there were 100 questions not the usual 85 he was used to practicing so he said he felt rushed for time at the end.

The English paper is creative writing, so the level of difficulty for that is hard to measure ( we all know how great state schools are in developing writing skills , although most of the children will be in the same boat). Their maths is much more based on the KS2 national curriculum questions than the problem solving types found last week - so yes a child who is good at maths will find the maths easy. However, I have added a note of caution to DS2 that there are still 1000 other applicants for the exam willing to put the school down somewhere on their form so he should take care not to plunge through the paper making silly mistakes just because he finds it easier.

UmSusu

[Priya01]

Thanks for the replies.Any ideas what topics to expect reg creative writing as we are still clueless,dont want dc to be totally surprised looking at the question paper.
It will all be over tomorrow and then starts the waiting time(dreadful).
Still trying to get a hang of standardised scores,age related scores etc.

[UmSusu]

Priya, in the past they have had questions on describing life during a chosen historical period, continuing a story, a horror story theme etc (I can't remember any others offhand but I think there was a thread on this in approx January last year).

As you can see the type of theme might vary but what the children need to remember is to have a structure to their work, use of descriptive language, correct use of punctuation (especially if there is speech), spelling, using paragraphs appropriately and although it might sound silly : actually making sure they answer the question rather than go off on a tangent about whatever it is they would rather talk about!

Good Luck!

UmSusu

[Priya01]

Thank you ever so much UmSusu. You have been so helpful.Shall post how DC found his exam tomorrow.Thanks once again.

[Priya01]

Today's exam went off fine,timings was OK too.I don't know if I can post the details about the exam.overall,it was less complicated than last weeks exam.